Autumn Love
by 2M
Summary: Lenalee tries to confess her feelings for Lavi, but she finds it harder than she thought, especially because Lavi doesn’t get it. Plus, who said that you need mistletoe? We prove that sentiment here! LenaleexLavi


**Autumn Love**

By bleached.dragon

_Bleached.dragon: Ah! Back into the realm of D.Gray-Man fandom… Oh, I've missed it so…! So pretty much, this story is about my favorite pairing, ever. And yes! It's a romance! With a bit of humor, because that's just how I am. So, what is my favorite pairing? Why, Lenalee and Lavi of course. And my summary goes, "Lenalee tries to confess her feelings for Lavi, but she finds it harder than she thought, especially because Lavi doesn't get it. Plus, who said that you need mistletoe? We prove that sentiment here!" Okay, please review if you liked it!_

Lenalee Lee tiptoed into the expansive Exorcist Headquarters library at around 2 am in the morning, skirting huge, unmanageable stacks of paper that rested on the cold marble floors. She scanned the room, which looked like it had been hit with a blizzard. She took a deep breath and plunged into the drifts of paper, strengthening her resolve.

Lavi was curled up in his usual place in the library. Well, a more exact term would be weighed down between ten metric tons of paper, but Lenalee preferred to think of it in more of an idealistic, reading a book, kind of light. Lenalee generally thought of scholars in that way, but the scholar she was visiting at the moment was moaning and groaning as his pen moved slowly across the table, carving out what looked like graffiti onto the polished oaken tables that were the Bookman's pride and joy.

"Hey Lavi! The Bookman is going to be mad if you keep carving on his tables."

Lavi returned the warning with a snore. Lenalee blinked and looked closer, her black hair falling around her shoulders as she looked at the sleeping redhead's scribbling. Before she could fully make out the faint tracings, Lavi showed some signs of life.

"…17 century B.C…" he mumbled blearily, "…akuma………1239 reign of king…"

Lenalee smiled fondly, how cute, he was dreaming about his work. She looked closer at his doodles and realized that he was writing as he mumbled.

She giggled and consequently woke up the apprentice bookman who shot up in his seat and cried out, "Alexander the Great! Born 356 B.C. died 389 B.C. of typhoid at age 33! Don't hit me!" He accompanied the last part by shielding his head with his arms.

Lenalee couldn't help but laugh, as the befuddled exorcist suddenly realized that it wasn't the Bookman who was towering over him.

Anyway, the old panda-face never really towered over anything, with the exception of very small animals. He completed this conclusion by wondering if Allen was a small animal.

Lenalee managed to stop laughing long enough to splutter, "Oh…! I'm sorry…! That just surprised me…" she sighed wistfully, "I haven't laughed like that in a while."

Lavi bowed theatrically, the caffeine he had pumped into his system finally kicking in, four hours late, "I am glad to be of assistance. If you want, I could go back to sleep and we could do this again."

"No you don't." the Bookman's voice echoed ominously.

Lavi's head shot up again, "Oh shoot! Alexander the Great! Born 356 B.C.—!" He was cut short by the smack of a wooden fan against his red hair.

"Idiot! You're not a Science Department caffeine addict! You want to die on a mission because you pulled another all-nighter? If I remember correctly, the last time you did something stupid because you didn't sleep, you ended up sleepwalking and wrecking three—three!—buildings! They thought you were drunk!"

"I'm not the only one up this late," grumbled his apprentice, pouting childishly.

"What did you say?"

"Nothing! Nothing!"

Lenalee steered her good friend out of the door before someone went flying out the window, because she had a good idea who would be the one breaking his fall midair or fishing him from a duck pond, and Lenalee wasn't in the mood for that.

After the two of them had advanced out of projectile range of the Bookman, Lenalee spun Lavi around and very quietly said, her face flushing in the relative darkness of the deserted landing, "Um… Lavi… there's something I would," she changed her mind mid –sentence and blurted, "…Did you drink all of the Science Department's coffee?"

"No, why?"

"Half of them are going through withdrawal," replied Lenalee, still a nice shade of lobster red, her hands shaking.

Lavi laughed, "Now that is a sight I want to see," and he ran lightly to the Science Department with a spring in his step, as if it wasn't the graveyard shift.

Lenalee watched him go and consoled herself, "It's not like he wasn't too sleepy to put it off as a dream if he didn't return my feelings," she said to herself bitterly, "at this rate, he is going to meet some beautiful girl and I'm never going to tell him I like him." She sighed and wandered miserably down the hallway, the caffeine buzz of the Science Department's coffee fading off.

Behind her, a door slowly closed, Allen Walker retreated into his room, having caught the last part of her monologue and wondered, "I she talking about me?"

Allen sighed blissfully; Lenalee was always sweet and treated everyone as her little siblings, the Chinese exorcist would often be found be giving people spontaneous gifts or lifting the infirm up flights of stairs. Allen exhaled again and fell asleep dreaming about the beautiful exorcist, except all his dreams had her brother pointing something sharp at him in the background.

Someone else in the Headquarters was also blissful, blissfully oblivious to Lenalee's inner turmoil. Lavi was perched high above the Scientist and also blissfully happy, the dread Komui, brother of, and only thing that kept him from occasionally flirting with, the equally beautiful as he was dread, Lenalee, was prostrate on the floor and reaching up to him as if he was god or something and groaning, "…Coffee…need… coffee… Lena…lee…"

Lavi laughed and vanished down an alcove. This was better than giving Lenalee a Christmas hug, under a giant hanging of mistletoe, right in front of Komui. Then again, he thought, making Komui think that he was going to kiss Lenalee was rather classic too, the tormented expression on his face as he made a last ditch sprint to stop such an occurrence was incredibly amusing. Especially the look of utter relief when Lavi to gave her a hug at the last possible moment and the shocked expression on his face when Lenalee turned around and sweetly asked what was wrong. It was like watching someone changing masks with extreme expressions on them at light speed.

Lavi smiled to himself. He thought that Lenalee sometimes enjoyed driving her brother crazy just as much as he did. Either that, or getting hugged was such a rare incident, with Komui's heavy artillery and all, that she didn't really care for what reason she got hugged.

That's it, he thought, Lenalee was generally sweet and blameless like that. He followed up by wondering if he should really kiss Lenalee next time, it might even snap Komui out of withdrawal.

Speaking of Christmas, he was suddenly struck by a thought, which caused him to sprint down the hallway at top speed.

The sweet and blameless one had secreted herself in an alcove not far from were Lavi watched the caffeine deprived scientists grovel, and was thinking about that same incident.

She sighed, Lavi had seemed to be close to kissing her, but had hugged her when he turned and viewed the sight of a stampeding Komui, armed to the teeth. She wondered if Lavi remembered this incident. When she had asked about it, he had begged a short-term memory and pleaded the fifth.

"Well, might as well get some sleep!" Lenalee told herself, masking her sudden bout of depression and she ran off, wondering how she should dispose of what remained of the Science Department's coffee, it had already taken several bucket loads of the stuff for her to keep herself awake until this hour.

--

Yu Kanda was not a morning person. In fact, sometimes Lavi wondered if Kanda was a person at all. No person could act like a piece of rock; maybe he was one of Komui's machines.

When he had voiced this opinion to Lenalee, she had laughed lightly and told him that she sometimes liked his quiet companionship and that if he were one of Komui's inventions, he would already have malfunctioned. Lavi had replied that Lenalee was denying the inevitable, and had secretly wondered if Lenalee was in love with Kanda. After all, she did spent lots of time joining him in 'meditation' or whatever they were doing.

Anyway, at the moment, Kanda was sulking in the dining hall, eating brea

kfast, and Lavi noticing that he was just waiting for the chance to pick a fight. Maybe it was time to employ his skills as a comedian, "Everybody!" he called, "Don't drop a chopstick! Our great Lord Yu is in a terribly mood," he said the last part in a falsetto.

"Do you want to die, Lavi?" growled Kanda, fingering his Mugen and wondering how fast he could slice the redhead into tiny little pieces, subsequently turning his stormy gaze from a group of finders who were boisterously laughing at a shared joke.

"Not really," Lavi replied glibly, "I'm here to bring you some more flowers!"

Kanda's growl became somewhat of a snarl; the subject of the lotus he kept in his room was something that the junior bookman constantly teased him about, "Lavi!"

Kanda chased the laughing bookman out of the dinning hall just as Allen and Lenalee sat down at the long oaken table, Allen staggering slightly under the giant tray of food that he was balancing.

"Maybe I should stop them," Lenalee said worriedly, "before Kanda kills anyone."

"They'll be fine, Lenalee," Allen replied comfortably, dropping his food filled tray with a sigh of relief, "Anyway, you look really tired."

Lenalee sighed and rubbed her eyes, "I stayed up really late last night."

Allen smiled to himself; Lenalee was beautiful even when she looks like she didn't sleep a wink. He looked around and seeing that Komui wasn't there, put his arm around her shoulder, "Oh come on, Lenalee! Cheer up! You should worry about yourself for once."

Lenalee disentangled herself from him and got up, "You're right," she said, a determined look on her face, "I should do something for myself. Thank you, Allen." She skipped lightly off, leaving a blushing Allen behind.

Lenalee continued aimlessly, despite her earlier resolve, and came upon the Science Department. She wondered guiltily if she should apologize to her brother for raiding his department's caffeine stash until she noticed that the entire department was gorging itself on chocolate. She laughed, "Brother, why are you all eating chocolate?"

Komui, being a fastidious person, swallowed and dabbed at his mouth lightly before answering, "Someone took our entire stash of coffee, so we had to improvise."

Lenalee smiled, "That's nice."

She looked around the department, past overworked Reever and a harried looking Russell, thinking that something was off.

"Oh!" she finally realized what was different, the entire room was scattered with Christmas decorations, "It's Christmas already?" Lenalee nearly had one of the Miranda style panic attacks, she had marked and remarked the date on her calendar, but was so caught up in trying to confess of Lavi that she had forgotten that Christmas Eve was today.

"It's okay, Lenalee," Komui patted her shoulder, "we almost forgot, too, since you didn't start your yearly Christmas decorating, but Lavi reminded us."

Lenalee blinked, "Lavi?"

"He said that the eggnog was expired."

Lenalee giggled, "Thank you, brother. I'll help with the decorations."

"No, no," Komui gestured for her to sit down, "You're always taking care of the decorations and anyway, did you get any sleep last night? You look tired."

Lenalee smiled thankfully and sprinted away, she had about fifteen hours to find presents for each and every member in this building. Sometimes, she was glad that exorcists had an all-expenses-paid job. It shouldn't be that hard, she reasoned, after all, the pre-"in love with Lavi" Lenalee had already done most of the present ordering. She had already made a checklist too. Lenalee sighed blissfully, now I just have to enlist someone to help me wrap presents.

Komui watched her go with a devilish smile, "Keke, this year, well have incredible decorations and," he smiled evilly and donned his hard hat, "there will be no mistletoe for my precious Lenalee to get kissed under."

He was momentarily distracted from his plans by a beeping sound and stared aghast as a giant crane slowly creaked it's way through the cluttered department room, hanging the biggest piece of mistletoe he had ever seen in his life over the department room.

Fortunately for whoever had decided to do something like that, the crane was fully automated. After going after the machine with a blowtorch and reducing it to a heap of rubble, Komui suddenly realized that he needed the crane to get to the high ceiling of the department room.

"I'm going to need some heavily artillery for this." Komui slinked off to his experimentation rooms.

"You're not trying to skip work, are you, Head Scientist!" Reever called after him, while trying to balance an armful of glass golems gilded with silver paint, that Komui had made specifically for the occasion. The golems shot off, lighting up, and played Christmas carols, "Komui!" Reever tumbled off the ladder he was standing on and got a broken collarbone for his efforts.

--

Kanda didn't know why he bothered. Now, Allen knew why he bothered, but both of them were clueless to why the dark haired swordsman bothered. Well, bothered to help Lenalee wrap presents. Allen did it because he was in love. Kanda did it, because of the exposition in the first sentence, anyway, he had wanted to use his Mugen on something after the junior bookman had slipped away from him by jumping down a laundry chute.

Kanda was using his Mugen to cut the wrapping paper to Lenalee's exacting standards, Allen was wrapping, and Lenalee was writing gift tags. After wrapping four hundred fifty-six identical boxes of chocolate, they moved on to champagne, and then Lenalee shooed her helpers out the door, "These are secret," she said with a wink.

"I'm going to meditate," Kanda grumbled and wandered off.

"I'd love to come, Kanda," Lenalee called out cheerfully, "But I'm too busy right now, later?"

Allen saw Kanda slump a millimeter, maybe it was just his imagination, he turned, maybe now it was time to ask Lenalee if she liked him, after all, she did like someone, didn't she? "Uh, Lenalee…?"

"No, you can't see your present until Christmas!" Lenalee shut the door in his face.

"Eh? But I didn't want…" Allen sighed and skulked off, moping every step of the way. He turned a corner and walked into the Science Department, and slipped, sliding through the what looked like snow in a comical fashion. Apparently, Reever had had old papers shredded to make fake snow, so Allen emerged covered in paper cuts, "That hurt."

He looked up and stared in awe, in the space of three hours, Reever had transformed the entire paper littered and eclectic Science Department into a Christmas scene that would put Santa to shame. Allen bet that Reever's other elves, erm, helpers, were busy decoration the rest of the Order Headquarters.

Allen sighed, and then looked up, wondering why the giant piece of mistletoe hanging above the department had burn marks on it. He was above to voice this to an aid, when there was a boom and a guided missile shot out and hit the mammoth piece of shrubbery. Allen started and turned, to see Komui, armed to the teeth, blast away at the mistletoe with pesticides, insecticides, poisons, torches, bombs, and all other manner of lethal weaponry, but the plant seemed to refuse to die and shrivel. At which Komui would give an outraged scream and hustle off to his secret labs for another lethal weapon.

"Hey, Allen, whatcha looking at?" Lavi ambled up to Allen.

"Komui's trying to blast a giant piece of mistletoe to bits, it's amazing it's still alive," Allen replied.

Komui returned, this time with a giant cannon marked on the side with a giant nuclear waste sign. Allen ran to the closet, selected an anti-radiation suit, which had been converted to Santa Clause costume and zipped it up, fixing the fake beard and hat onto his head, "Be careful now, Lavi."

Before Komui could unleash certain death and destruction, the mistletoe itself trembled and spontaneously combusted, showering the occupants with another storm of cleanup work. Lavi bent and picked up a sprig that had survived the violent end of the rest of the shrub and walked off, whistling innocently.

"Hey, Lavi, wait for me," Allen dashed after the redhead, "Could I talk to you for a moment."

--

"Do you swear?" Allen asked seriously for the fortieth time in the last two hours.

"Yes I swear," Lavi replied in a monotone, thinking that he should have just ditched Allen in the first place.

Allen looked around the deserted landing nervously, "Are you sure."

"Yes, I'm sure!" Lavi snapped, "Just get on with it."

"I like Lenalee," Allen said, turning beet red.

Lavi spluttered, and then burst out laughing, "That's a new one."

Allen was indignant, "I thought you swore you wouldn't laugh!"

"I did?" Lavi pointed to himself, sporting a bewildered expression.

"You did!"

"Oh well, I'll go tell Lenalee then!" Lavi ran off towards the Chinese exorcist's room.

"You swore you wouldn't tell!"

"I did?" Lavi called over his back, "I kinda fell asleep during the 'I will die a thousand painful deaths' part."

"LAVI!"

"I've got to get to her first," Allen ran towards a shortcut.

While Allen was making his mad dash for Lenalee, someone else was also looking for the Chinese exorcist. Kanda walked down the corridor, and wondered where Lenalee had gone, he had waited for her to join him, as she usually did, to meditate, but she never showed up. Kanda arrived at her door just as Lenalee exited her room, "Lenalee…"

At the same moment, Allen shot out of the paneling behind a painting, "LENALEE!

"You guys," she looked at them, "Why are you so insistent on knowing what I'm getting you for Christmas," she finished irritably, "You're like children."

"You know, Lenalee," Lavi finally managed to show up, "I think they're both trying to propose to you."

"LAVI!" Allen howled.

"What the hell!" Kanda echoed.

"Why don't I make it a threesome," Lavi got down on one knee with a mocking smile at the other two exorcists, "I think I had a ring somewhere here…"

He wasn't able to finish, because Lenalee's boot connected solidly with his head, "That hurt! Lenalee!" he cried, outraged.

"You don't get it, do you?" Lenalee asked, her eyes brimming with tears and she ran off.

"Oh shoot!" Lavi was getting worried, this would make the second time in a month that he had made Lenalee cry, "Wait! Lenalee!"

Allen made to follow, "Lenalee!"

"Wait! Allen!" Kanda grabbed his arm with an expression that practically had 'I know something you don't' written all over it.

--

Lenalee was depressed. Everything for Lavi was some big joke bundled up together, anything romantic he did wasn't ever serious, just teasing. She sighed, except when he met some other pretty girl. Then he turned on the charm. She rocked slowly on the floating platform in the central room and stared bleakly out at the new festive lights and banners that Reever had rigged up earlier, which was at odds with the general gloomy air that the place had. Lenalee felt the Christmas spirit bleeding away from her. It was all just a joke for him.

"Hey, Lenalee?" Lavi suddenly stuck his head right in his face.

"Ah!" she started out of her reverie, "Lavi?"

He settled next to her, shrinking his hammer and tucking it into his belt, "Sorry if I said anything stupid."

Lenalee hit him on the head with a book lying nearby.

"That hurt!" Lavi complained, "I did apologize, didn't I?"

"Idiot!" Lenalee punctuated every word with a whack of her book; "You never did consider that I might actually like you before you made a joke proposal, did you?!"

"Eh?" Lavi stopped shielding his head with his hands, "I thought you were in love with Allen…"

"What?" Lenalee stopped hitting him with her book, "What made you think of that?"

"Well, you were downright hysterical when he had to leave him in China, for starters," Lavi scratched his head, "Oh, and he also told me that he loved you," Lenalee made a startled noise, "And, apparently he had dreams about you."

Lenalee dropped her book, "Allen?"

Lavi hit her lightly on the head with the book, "Yes, Allen. Him plus Sir Head Scientist are a dangerous combination. Anyway, you didn't seem interested. Plus there's always the irritable Lord Kanda."

Lenalee started, "Lavi…"

"I've got it somewhere," Lavi poked around his pockets and fished out the crumpled piece of mistletoe, "That's all that's left of the giant bush of this stuff that Komui blew to bits."

"Lavi…?"

Lavi gave her a kiss.

And then looked down at the miserable piece of greenery, "Oh shoot! I forgot to hold it up!"

Lenalee laughed.

Unfortunately for Lavi, it was Komui who witnessed Lenalee's first kiss. He wasn't too pleased, "WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING, LAVI?" he screamed in outrage.

"Kissing Lenalee," Lavi sauntered past him, "Oh, and we're planning a June wedding."

"WHAT?" Komui immediately hugged his sister protectively, "Lenalee! You're getting married without telling me?!" he asked, tears gushing down his face.

Lenalee extricated herself from Komui's death grip and caught up with Lavi, who turned and commented, "I wonder what's for dinner."

Lenalee punched him lightly, "Since when did I agree to a June wedding?"

"YES! TELL HIM LENALEE!" Komui punched the air.

"I've always fancied November," Lenalee added, and laughed.

**The End**

_Bleached.dragon: I know that it's called __Autumn Love__ and only has a sentence to do with autumn and takes place in December, but the title sounded pretty. That's my justification. I hope you enjoyed the reading the story as much as I did writing it…_

_Lavi: We'll just let her babble._

_Lenalee: and for those of you wondering what we had for dinner, nothing! Brother chased us around, until breakfast, when Kanda woke up and threatened him with his Mugen. I feel a bit sorry for brother; he's still in the infirmary._

_Lavi: What do you mean, "I feel sorry for him?" He was trying to hit me with a bazooka full of hazardous waste!_

_Bleached.dragon: Okay, thanks for reading and reviewing. Bye, bye for now._


End file.
